


Letting Go

by grey_lace



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Angst, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Demons, Failed to stop the Apocalypse, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pre-Relationship, War, Warrior Aziraphale, they're not really together yet but the suggestion is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey_lace/pseuds/grey_lace
Summary: In the end, none of it was enough. Not the prophecies, not four dear friends, not an angel or a demon.--------------------------------------Aziraphale and Crowley fail to prevent the Apocalypse. Once the battle begins they meet each other on opposite ends of the battlefield, and are faced with a difficult choice.[Previously titled ‘mortem ab angelo’]





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy!  
So basically I was wanting to write something angsty about these two failing to stop the apocalypse. With some character death thrown in for spice.  
I'll say off the bat that this work is un-beta'd, and this is my first time writing fanfic both for this fandom and in several years. Critiques are welcome so long as they are constructive and polite!
> 
> I have no illusions that this fic could probably be more detailed, more in character, a little more developed. Perhaps some day i'll come back and fix all of that, but for now I hope you, the reader, can find some enjoyment out of this!
> 
> Comments and kudos are always extremely appreciated!

In the end, none of it was enough. Not the prophecies, not four dear friends, not an angel or a demon.

\--

The fighting had been going on for so long. Had started millennia before, and finally, _ finally, _ continued. Time falling away in the wake of the apocalypse, slowing and twisting and bending. This was war, this was the final round. Time was something the humans had needed, to count their days, measure the hopelessly small blip of their lives against something, anything. Time had run out, obsolete on the plains of Armageddon.

None of them dared stop. The whole Earth was their battlefield and the victor claimed the right to eternity. They had no need to sleep, to eat, but both sides were filled with a horrible voracious hunger. Something ugly lived inside them, desperate for blood. It sat heavy in their chests, fueling the fervor of battle, right in the place where humans once had hearts.

\--

When the apocalypse began, despite his best efforts, they had rallied for war immediately. Exhausted, heartbroken, watching the other side drag the only person he had in the world back down to Hell, Aziraphale let himself be persuaded back into Heaven.

He found a uniform shoved at him, and took it. It wasn’t the same as the rest of the angels’ in his platoon, he noted regretfully. Extra pieces, some of it decorative, delicate gold tassels and small chains denoting rank and class. The rest of it entirely functional. _ Armour, _he realized, and suddenly the bundle felt entirely too heavy in his arms.

In the first war, he had done things that made him sick to think of. Things Heaven had been so proud of, enough to earn him a medal, some armour, a rank that any other angel ought to strive for.

An unfamiliar and impatient angel, white coat and kilt indicating a lower rank, had been sent to assist with the more complicated straps and fastenings. He thought he might just as easily miracle it onto himself, but the other angel was already fussing with something, fastening the straps of a finely crafted vambrace onto his arm. He held his tongue, let the other angel assist him with the pieces he wouldn’t be able to fasten alone, greatly preferring the silence anyhow. He dressed as pieces were handed to him, gold glinting in the sterile white corridors of Heaven. He was distracted, dazed, distantly glad for the absence of mirrors in this place, lest he see the reflection of an angelic warrior. He was handed something else, which he took numbly. It was well balanced and powerful. A sword, of the non-flaming variety. His stomach flipped. He curled those gentle, manicured hands around the handle, watching his fingers flex against the soft leather binding the grip.

He followed the other angel out of the room. Let himself be organized into formation according to his rank. 

Across the yet unsullied battlefield gathered the opposition. Hell. Naively, he scanned as best he could for a flash of auburn, but they were nothing more than a dark smudge against a darker horizon.

The trumpets, sounding hollow, signaled the beginning of the final war. 

They told him to march and he marched. 

\--

He fought. He killed. He didn’t dare lose focus.

He watched as both sides devolved, snarling and hateful, into something entirely other than what they started as. Beasts of the same variety now, and he almost could have laughed at the irony. Almost.

He remembered the first war. The smell of burning, and blood, and metal. The sound of screaming, and dying, and screaming again. He remembered the frenzy. Angels falling, limp, from the sky. The sick wet crack of their wings and their bodies breaking as they hit the earth. If he didn’t know better, he could have almost imagined it was the same event. Not that he really wanted to, not that it would make a difference.

Not for the first time, Aziraphale noted the absence of God.

Someone clapped him on the back in passing, congratulating him on the slaughter of beings they had once called family, and for a second he was almost grateful for the praise. 

He didn’t stop. _ Couldn’t _. Not until it was won, if any of them wanted to make it out alive.

The weight of a sword was dreadful and familiar, and he found his body still remembered how to manoeuvre. Wings beating fiercely against storm clouds, dipping low and slashing, arcing the blade through the air and landing with precision in the chest of yet another nameless demon. 

He found, nauseously, that his body still remembered how to kill and he was just as deadly as he had never wanted to be.

\--

It must have been some kind of miracle, Crowley thought bitterly, that he hadn’t been hacked to pieces yet by some angel (or demon, to be frank) in the mess of battle. He wasn’t built to fight, didn’t have a mind for it either. He was built to slink and snark and slither. So he did.

Slipping between soldiers, spending all his time narrowly avoiding being pinned on the end of a sword, wiggling away from danger just in time. _ Mostly _.

He had been told that if he fought, and Hell won, they might just be willing to look past the attempt at stopping Armageddon. He agreed to fight knowing full well they were lying, that if he saw the end of the battle he only had eternity of punishment in Hell to look forward to.

They shoved a weapon into his hands. He took it, flashing a smile and promising he’d make Uncle Sam proud. Blank faces. Well, his humour had always been wasted in hell, whatever.

No, Crowley wasn’t made for fighting, that was true, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t. He had imagination, and heart, and so, so many unanswered questions and when presented with something significant enough to protect he could be really quite impressive. Except that everything he had to fight for had changed. 

Crowley had fought for Earth, now barren. For humanity, extinct. For an angel who wasn’t like the rest, with hope and compassion and a spark of that same dangerous curiosity he had had; now assimilated into the ranks of the heavenly army.

And what was left for him now but to carry on as he had before Eden? To hide, from necessity and to wait for a chance to get out.

He did what he knew how to do to survive, avoided confrontation and actual combat as much as he could. A battlefield is no place for temptation, but for brutality, and violence, and fury. For all the anger he’d let fester, for so much time spent imagining revenge or redemption, he looked inward and found he couldn’t make himself be a warrior. 

And, in-between avoiding his own death, for that was surely guaranteed for more of them than not, he looked for the things he knew to look for. Platinum curls, a flaming sword, anyone left with an ounce of-- well, of anything other than bloodlust. Some kindness, maybe.

As the battle wore on, it became infinitely more difficult to avoid taking part. To go unnoticed.

He killed, only as a necessity, unsurprised to find that he was quite awful at it. Finding just as many demons at the end of the strange, indeterminate weapon Hell had issued him as he did angels. Which was to say, at this point, one of each. Even then it came with no small amount of agonizing guilt, and certainly not without the burn of bile in the back of his throat. Quite awful indeed.

He might have even counted himself lucky that the only considerable damage he had been dealt so far was to his left wing (ignoring several deep gashes and what was very likely a broken hand), except that it left him stranded, unable to avoid further injury by simply going up.

\--

He found himself stumbling, pitifully, trying to navigate around clusters of soldiers; it was getting harder to differentiate who was fighting for who, everyone was covered in filth, bleeding, vicious. He sucked in a ragged breath, tongue slipping out for a moment and then he stopped. Paralyzed, empty cavern of his chest fluttering in some faint hope.

He’d know it anywhere, amidst the inescapable odor of blood that seeped into, and then back out of, the very earth. He smelled an angel. Something nostalgic, safe and soft, parchment and ink, vanilla and petrichor. And maybe once it would have also been tea and sugar and the frosting from the cakes of that charming little bakery up the road (you know, the ones with the cherries?), but not that, not anymore.

When he saw Aziraphale he thought, aching, that his sense of smell had been mistaken. He saw an angel, ivory wings outstretched and eyes blazing with heavenly fury. Glorious golden armour, brilliant even amidst the decimation around him. His sword, righteous and precise, expertly slaughtering several demons who were swinging at him, uncoordinated and angry. His movements were confident, and devastating. Every inch of him was streaked in blood, most of it not his own, and soaked into his hair where he found that those lovely platinum curls had been cropped into something decidedly more _ gladiatorial. _

But when the angel looked up he knew. He knew, damn it, he’d know him anywhere.

_ Finally _, he thought, so relieved to see that he was still alive.

_ Finally, _he thought, knowing the war, at least for him, could end.

\--

Aziraphale let instinct take over. 

Let himself be lost in the rhythm of the battle, the sound of death less jarring than it had been; now familiar, or rather, familiar once again. 

He didn’t let himself think about how many he killed or how he had lost track by now.

He didn’t stop looking for flashes of auburn among the soldiers of hell. He didn’t let himself admit that after some time he began looking too, in the piles of the dead shoved indelicately out of the way, or left where they had fallen.

He felt as if in a trance, lulled by the repetitive motion of raising his sword, and then sinking it into something soft. Not bothering to be aware of his fellow angels, but certain to know every direction from which a demon was charging.

Then he felt eyes on him, and for a moment as his rhythm broke he was confused. When he looked up he knew, and he almost dared to feel relief, because he would know Crowley anywhere.

_ Finally _.

\--

He can see, from this distance that his wings are badly injured, the left one so limp it drags behind him through the mud as he hobbles toward him. Crowley is spattered with blood, mostly his own, and he’s holding something blunt and vaguely weapon-shaped.

Aziraphale advances, stopping in front of him just in time to watch Crowley crumple to his knees, palms pressing into the filth of the battlefield.

“Angel_.” _ He breathes, looking up, hoarse but undeniably pleased to see him. He even smiles.

“Crowley! What’s happened to you, you’re —” he falters, feeling dumb. He knows what happened, it’s _ war _, of course he’s hurt. Of course he’s bleeding. And still, foolishly, he’s so deeply relieved to find him at the very least alive. “It’s good to see you again, my dear.” He tries instead.

“Well, better it be you than anyone else, eh?” The smile is almost genuine, and then entirely so when he sees the confusion on the angels face. Crowley had missed him and after everything he was even going to let himself admit it too. From his angle on the ground, Aziraphale was the picture of a warrior. Bloodied and golden and shining. He looked _ glorious. _ Well, he would have if not for the familiar apprehension creeping back into his soft features.

“I’m afraid we can’t be seen talking like this for too long, not out in the open. We’re supposed to be trying to kill each other, of course.” As if to emphasize his point, Aziraphale spares a glance around them to ensure no one has noticed them. He finds that they’re all too busy killing each other.

"_Of course_.” Crowley echoes. “Now you’ve got the right idea. Go on then.” He gestures at the sword. Aziraphale looks down at it too, then frowns.

“Crowley, this really is no time for—”

“_Angel _.” His voice is suddenly so gentle, the same heartbroken tone as when he told Aziraphale about the bookshop burning. How long ago was that now? It seems like an entirely different lifetime, blocked off by this unending stretch of violence. “I’m serious.”

And he is. Aziraphale knows he is, recognizes the calm expression, the acceptance. He suddenly realizes Crowley is still kneeling before him, it makes him feel unpleasant. He thinks for a moment to kneel too, so they might speak face to face, but settles instead for shifting his weight uncertainly from one foot to the other.

“I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re asking.” Each word is spoken carefully, just as gentle. Aziraphale resists the urge to drop the sword, the awful thing, and wring his hands. He considers being angry at Crowley for having the audacity to ask. Thinks distantly of ducks, of a miserable piece of paper with the words ‘holy water’ scratched onto it. He thinks also of Heaven, of how much killing he’s already done.

“You know there’s no way out of this bloody war, don’t you, angel?” Crowley spits, suddenly angry. His right wing flaps uselessly behind him in response to the sudden outburst. The left does not. “The choices are: win or die. We both know who’s going to win, it’s already been decided. But they’re all out there dying and killing each other anyways.” Crowley is snarling, breathing hard. Aziraphale looks down, only just noticing the absence of his usual dark glasses. 

Aziraphale tries to think of anything to say, but he’s right. Heaven is destined to win. As always, good is intended to triumph over evil. 

“Listen.” Crowley starts again, trying to calm himself and keep his voice even. “If it isn’t you it’s going to be someone else. My side isn’t going to win, and yours won’t stop until every last damned demon is dead.” 

“What about _ our side _?” He asks, dread gathering in his gut.

“Look at where ‘our side’ got us, hmm? We don’t get that luxury anymore. This is it.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale starts after a long moment, surprised at first by the sound of his own voice. Feeling helpless, because in the back of his mind he should have known it might come to this. That meeting Crowley on opposite ends of the battlefield would be unavoidable once Armageddon began, and that only one of them at best would walk away from this. It is, in no small way, his duty as a soldier of Heaven and that thought is enough to make his fingers shake ever so slightly. He wonders if Heaven would tack another frivolous medal onto him for killing the serpent of Eden. He couldn’t bear to be congratulated for such a thing. Distantly he thinks he should almost be grateful, Crowley is entrusting him with his life, and bestowing him with the wretched honour of ending it. He clenches his hand tight around the sword handle to ground himself, knuckles white. “I don’t know that I can.” He adds with uncertainty, nearly apologetic and feeling as wounded as Crowley looks.

“You can,” Crowley assures, softer now, taken by an eerie calm. The angel’s dithering was a familiar sight, would have almost been enjoyable were he not so visibly distressed. Again, Crowley’s chest ached, he resisted the urge to punch the ground, to scream. Inwardly cursing God, Satan, the bloody ineffable plan. Every last one of them ought to burn. He never wanted to ask this of him, never wanted it to come to this. But they were here because he had failed so very miserably every step of the way; there was simply no stopping the apocalypse. They were there because at the end of the day they were hereditary enemies, and because this war had a predetermined victor. “Aziraphale, _ please _.”

At this Aziraphale did join him on the ground, practically collapsing to his knees. His eyes felt hot, he tried to organize his scattered thoughts. They were level with each other now, he was close enough the see the flecks of blood spattered across Crowley’s cheek. His eyes wide, golden, more serpentine than he’d seen them in a very long time. For the first time since the war began, Aziraphale felt like he was fighting a losing battle. Crowley was right, after all, Heaven would triumph and all of Hell would be destroyed, every last demon burning with it. There would be nowhere for them to go, there wasn’t anything left to escape to. It went without saying that he would have done absolutely anything else to avoid this, anything, but there was a quiet resignation in Crowley’s voice he hadn’t ever heard before. He looked so tired, and he was bleeding so much. Aziraphale wondered if he was trying to tempt him, manipulating him with logic and facts to achieve what he perceived to be the only viable ending. Crowley had never been particularly suicidal, but he had always been reckless, especially in regards to himself.

“Think of it as a bit of thwarting, for old times’ sake, hmm?” Crowley reaches out and bumps his shoulder in a way that would have been playful in any other situation. Frankly, Aziraphale is grateful for the contact to remind him he’s still inhabiting a body.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” The angel replies finally, sadly, “We were supposed to stop all of this, we could have saved everyone. We could have celebrated with lunch at the Ritz, and champagne, andー” His voice cracks, he can hear himself rambling, can feel hot tears trailing down his cheeks leaving streaks through the mess of blood and dirt there.

“Would have been a nice ending,” Crowley agrees. His chest feels tight because the angel is nearly weeping now, and it’s his fault but he really, truly doesn’t know how he could make any of this better. He’s got no better solution than the one already proposed. “Let’s say that’s how all of this went down, okay Angel? At the Ritz, with champagne.” Crowley reaches out and takes the hand that isn’t clamped like a vice around the sword handle. They’re both shaking.

Aziraphale’s expression is utterly broken, eyes red and miserable. Crowley has never seen him cry so much, normally he found himself being the one overwhelmed by hot, shameful tears. He finds himself overcome with the need to maintain composure, if not for Aziraphale then maybe for himself.

Aziraphale makes a futile attempt to stop the flood of emotion, but it seems the reality of the situation has truly become apparent. Never had he wanted anything so desperately as he wanted to be away from this situation. He wanted to be in his bookshop sharing a particularly nice vintage and getting ridiculously drunk, or in the Globe theater watching Hamlet for the first time with the demon snarking at his side, or on the walls of Eden making an odd new friend. Anywhere else. 

He squeezes Crowley’s hand. Musters the courage to meet his eyes again, and finds that Crowley is already looking at him. His brows are drawn together in concern, trying not to feel helpless at the realization that there is no comfort they can offer each other that will be enough for this.

“Are you certain?” He asks finally, hardly sounding like himself.

At least they’re on the same page now, Crowley thinks, to distract himself, because the anguished way Aziraphale is looking at him feels like someone spilled holy water inside his ribcage and he can hardly bear it. He forces himself to look at the angel, and to let himself be looked at, as if Aziraphale is trying to burn his face into memory. He hopes Aziraphale will have better memories of him than this. “Yes.”

Crowley lets go of Aziraphale’s hand and watches him grip the handle of his sword, shaking. He thinks he might be shaking too. 

“To the world.” Crowley prompts. His cheeks feel wet. He tries very hard not to be scared. In this too, he fails.

At this, Aziraphale sobs once. A low, horrible sound of grief. He takes one hand off the grip again, taking Crowley by the shoulder and pulling him in against his chest.

It feels warm and safe and _ oh. _

Oh, it hurt so much more than he thought it would.

So much worse than falling.

Maybe it’s less that the angel’s sword had been driven clean through him, the consecrated weapon burning him from the inside out, but because Aziraphale is sobbing, desperately clinging to him. “Angel..” He chokes, tries not to cough blood in the dramatic fashion he had seen in too many films on Earth.

“I’m sorry, i’m so sorry my dear, _ my love _, please, please stay with me.” Aziraphale is brokenly, frantically saying to him, but he sounds far away to Crowley. Like he’s listening from underwater.

“Let me see your face, angel.” It’s barely a whisper, finding it hard to make his body form words. His chest is burning around the sword lodged there, he wonders if holy water hurts this much too. 

Aziraphale is reluctant to let go, pulling away just enough so Crowley can look at him, almost entirely limp in his arms. He’s pale, yellow eyes half-lidded and he’s visibly trying to focus on the angel’s face. Aziraphale suppresses a whimper at the sight. 

“Please don’t go.” The angel begs, sniffling. Crowley is smiling so softly now, and Aziraphale realizes that the demon already has; He’s been left alone in the midst of so much bloodshed. 

All at once he feels utter desolation, and a detached kind of calm.

Aziraphale closes his eyelids for him. Pulls the sword from his chest, and it makes a sickening wet sucking sound that will never stop ringing in his mind.

His hands aren’t shaking as he cradles the back of Crowley’s head, trying to commit to memory the feel of his soft red hair. He buries the thought that he would have liked to kiss him, just once. It’s too much for his heart. Reluctantly, lovingly, he lays him down in the filth of the battlefield. 

Sword in hand, he stands, looks down at his friend and then to the heavens. He screams for a long time. Screams louder than the sound of the carnage all around him, loud enough to drown out the horrible emptiness now in the world.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't entirely sure how to end this fic...I had considered writing a bit more of Aziraphale's reaction in the aftermath but i think where I left it makes sense for now.
> 
> I worry maybe this fic is the epitome of 'that escalated quickly' but I think if the urgency and inevitability of the situation didn't come across, then i didn't do my job as the writer.
> 
> If you enjoyed it, let me know!  
If you didn't enjoy it, and wish to share why in a constructive and polite manner, also let me know!
> 
> Either way thank you for taking the time to read this!


End file.
